I've owned my house for around 10 years. The previous owner told  me that the tank was his, he installed it when he build the house in 2003. The date on the tank is 2002.   When I moved in, I stared using Easerly propane to fill the tank because that's who the previous owner used.  A few years later MS Propane bought Easterly.  

Faster forward several more years....and now this year after living in my house for 10 years, I get a tank rental bill from MS Propane.  I called them and told them that I own the tank.  They tell me "we will check into it".  So months go buy, and I get a letter in the mail yesterday stating "When MS Propane acquired Easterly Propane, we also acquired all of their rental tanks. Therefor, we own your tank now"............but no mention of a contract by the previous owner, no documentation showing the S/N on my tank....nothing but a letter saying basically "we own your tank...just take our word for it".

Anyone else had this happen?  I'm trying to figure out where I need to go from here.

I'd tell them they need to provide proof, documentation and a contract identifying your tank and serial #.

If not, tell them to contact your lawyer.

I had a trash company try that when I bought this house.

Funny thing was, I brought the trash totter with me from my St. Louis house and the folks before burnt all their trash...

I agree, I would be asking for proof that they actually own the tank. If what they say is true, then there should be copies of any contracts between the previous owner and company.

Someone there probably just made the assumption that the previous company owned it. It's probably easier to do that, than to actually find the records.

So I called the propane company back again this morning….talked to a lady in the records department. It went something like this.

Me: I own my tank but got a letter from you saying my tank is a rental, and I need to pay a tank rental fee.  Can you please provide me with a signed rental agreement from the previous owner of the house listing the serial number for my exact tank?

Her: I have tons of paperwork on my desk from all of the companies we have acquired over the last few years, it’s going to take me a while to track down the paperwork on your tank.

Me: So did you just send out a rental bills to every person that’s had their tank filled by you?

Her: NO, we only sent bills to the people who have our rental tanks.  

Me: So you show that my tank is one of your rental tanks?

Her:  Yes

Me: So, can you please send me that documentation that shows the serial number on my tank, and the rental agreement that goes along with it?

Her:  What’s your address?

Me:   Why?  Don’t you already have that on file if I have one of your tanks?

Her:  I want to send someone out there to take a look at the tank.

Me:  Why would you need to look at it?

Her:  To see if it’s ours or not.

Me:    I thought you already said it was one of yours, you said you had documentation showing it was yours, and that’s why you sent me the bill in the first place.

Her:  Let me go through all of this paperwork and see what I can find….I will get back to you.

These are the kind of idiots I’m dealing with.  At this point it’s 100% obvious that they have no documentation on my tank, and I’m betting they just sent bills out to everyone they had on record in order to go fishing and see who would pay them.   And once you pay that rental fee, the fine print pretty much says the tank is theirs from then on out.

put a fake serial number on it that is easy to find and see if that is what her paperwork says